Optical counterparts of two ultraluminous X-ray sources NGC4559 X-10 and NGC4395 ULX-1

TL;DR

This study identifies and characterizes optical counterparts of two ultraluminous X-ray sources, revealing their spectral properties, variability, and potential implications for accretion processes and donor star contributions.

Contribution

It provides detailed optical and X-ray analysis of ULX counterparts, including spectral fitting, variability measurement, and a new periodicity detection, advancing understanding of ULX nature.

Findings

NGC4559 X-10 has an F-type star spectrum.

NGC4395 ULX-1 exhibits a blue power-law spectrum.

A 62.8-day period was found in NGC4395 ULX-1.

Abstract

We study the optical counterparts of ultraluminous X-ray sources NGC4559 X-10 and NGC4395 ULX-1. Their absolute magnitudes, after taking the reddening into account, are $M_V \approx -5.3$ and $M_V \approx -6.2$, respectively. The spectral energy distribution of the NGC4559 X-10 counterpart is well fitted by a spectrum of an F-type star, whereas NGC4395 ULX-1 has a blue power-law spectrum. Optical spectroscopy of NGC4395 ULX-1 has shown a broad and variable HeII~$\lambda$4686 emission, which puts this object in line with all the other spectrally-studied ULXs. Using the Swift archival X-ray data for NGC4395 ULX-1, we have found a period of $62.8\pm 2.3$ days. The X-ray phase curve of the source is very similar to the precession curve of SS433. The optical variation of the counterpart (between two accurate measurements) amounts to 0.10 mag. Analyzing the absolute magnitudes of 16 well-studied ULX counterparts one may suggest that as the original accretion rate decreases (but nevertheless remains supercritical), the optical luminosity of the wind becomes dimmer and the donor star dominates. However, an observational bias may also influence the distribution.